Now that you're roughly caught up, let's get back to work. Obviously, the Message and the methods don't exist in a vacuum. Here are three overgeneralized and incorrect ways that we can view the relationship between the Message and the methods in Youth Ministry (lest I sound judgmental, allow me to confess that I have been guilty of all of them):
The methods are unrelated to the Message. I've spent way too many days, hours, and meetings planning a youth ministry schedule without even considering whether the events I was planning should have any relation to the direction I wanted our church and youth ministry to go. Too often, youth ministry is simply a fun and games ordeal, and as long as a little Jesus is thrown in, we assume we're doing our job. But as Marshall McLuhan pointed out, the medium is the message, and we can't assume our methods have little or no relationship with the Message. Which leads us to...
The methods become the Message. This can happen when we become so entrenched in a particular method or set of methods that they essentially replace the Message. This can take the form of a particular Spring Break trip that HAS to be done every year, or a particular format for a weekly gathering. It can also include tried and true legalism, where the way we serve God becomes more important than actually serving God.
The methods are allowed to dictate the Message. This one is more subtle. It occurs when our vision for youth ministry does not match up at all with what's actually going on within the youth ministry. For instance, does your youth ministry include families in its vision statement while having a totally separate worship service every week for students? Or does your mission statement express a heart for the lost, but your students are rarely pushed to pray for or share Jesus with their friends? You may have a Message you think you're communicating, but your methods are saying something else entirely. Eventually, our Message begins to be conformed to our methods, at which point creativity and conviction cease.
So, what do I believe is the best way to look at the Message and the methods? I once heard Mark Driscoll put it this way: we hold the Message (what we believe) tightly in one hand, and the methods (how we spread the message) loosely in the other hand. This doesn't mean that anything goes when it comes to methods; it simply means that how we spread the Message should be subordinate to the Message itself. We don't choose a method that convicts with the Message, and we don't hold onto a method at the expense of the Message.
How does this apply to your youth ministry context? Well, it's certainly not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. For some, it might very well include lasers. For others, a drastic overhaul of your youth ministry calendar might be in order. It requires a lot of prayer, Bible study, discernment, and humility to figure out. But I believe that kind of work is well worth the payoff.
What did I miss? What mistakes or high points can you share with how you've approached the Message and the methods in your context?
Update:
You can read Part 1 here and part 3 here.
